Abstract
Since the end of the 19thcentury , the idea of a world divided into great civilizations has been central to the academic and political worlds of the United States. During the Cold War, the "free world", as seen from the United States, placed the Western world at its center, in the vicinity of colonialist discourses in Europe. This talk will look at the emergence of the notion of civilization, its uses and popularization in the United States, right up to Samuel Huntington's famous "clash of civilizations" and, finally, its moral and political decline over the last twenty years.
Biography